Thursday, 29 January 2009

Body heat

Thanks to Christian Ecology Link's Jo Rathbone for this: A suburb of Barcelona – Santa Coloma de Gramanet – contains a cemetery holding the remains of 57,000 people. At a cost of 720,000 euros, the authorities have erected 462 solar panels on its multi-storey mausoleums, generating enough energy for 60 homes and saving about 62 tonnes of carbon emissions a year. Although the scheme was initially treated with derision, families who use the cemetery now support the idea and there are plans to erect more solar panels and triple the amount of electricity generated.

(No solar panels on La Sagrada Famila though, to the best of my knowledge: we didn't make it up onto the roof when we visited last October.)